UPDATE: Two Roane State athletes killed when train strikes vehicle

One former and a current Roane State Community College basketball player were killed and another former player and a friend were critically injured when a train struck a car in Roane County on Friday evening, officials said.

According to a Tennessee Highway Patrol report, the two dead are Roderick Patrick Drummond, 22,

of Greenville, S.C., and Jadah A. Gallaher, 18, of Harriman. Both were passengers in a car driven by Darius J. Gallaher, 20. Darius Gallaher, a former Roane State player and the brother of Jadah Gallaher, was injured.

Also injured was Hunter O. Crass, 20, of Harriman, a passenger in the car. He is a former football player at Harriman High School.

Drummond and Darius Gallaher played men's basketball at Roane State this past season. Jadah Gallaher was a freshman on the Roane State women's team. The two Gallahers also had been basketball standouts at Harriman High School.

Crass and Darius Gallaher were taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center, both in critical condition.

The collision occurred when the car, a 2000 Nissan Maxima, was traveling west on Tanglewood Road near Highway 27 at 8:34 p.m., dispatchers said.

The train crossing is in an unincorporated part of the county north of the Harriman city limits, officials said.

"He sustained a fracture in his neck, but there will be no paralysis," he said Saturday. "They are also looking at getting him off a ventilator and are hoping to wake him up later today. It is looking optimistic for his recovery."

There was no further word on Crass's condition.

Wesley Jones, Darius Gallaher's coach at Harriman High School, said he is a special person loved in the community.

"As good of an athlete as he was didn't approach the kind of person he was," he said.

"The Gallahers are close to Roane State," Nesbit said. "Their relationship with our program is a really long one. Their father, Willie, played for me 22 years ago. They and the Drummonds are great families."

He said the two men were a big part of the team.

"It was great to have Darius in our program," Nesbit added. "Rod was a highly regarded high school player out of South Carolina, who started two years for us."

The fathers of all of the people involved are church pastors: Willie Gallaher at St. Mary's Baptist Church in Harriman, Neil Crass at Big Emory Church in Harriman, and Drummond's father in Greenville.

Nesbit, who had his cellphone off on Friday night, said he was awakened with the tragic news by an assistant coach banging on his front door about midnight. He said UT Medical Center was filled with friends and family checking on the two survivors Friday night.

In February, Crass and his father, Neil Crass, were involved in a rescue of three youths who had fallen through the ice on Watts Bar Lake.